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Jackeymo was appalled by this appeal; and indeed Riccabocca had never before thus reverently spoken of the cloister. In his hours of philosophy, he was wont to sneer at monks and nuns, priesthood and superstition. But now, in that hour of emotion, the Old Religion reclaimed her empire; and the sceptical world-wise man, thinking only of his child, spoke and felt with a child's simple faith.
Cowley had, indeed, a great deal too much of 'the precocious humour of the world-wise boy' to put forward his play as anything of the kind; he was perfectly aware that it was an absolutely unreal fantasy, based entirely on convention and imitation, the sole merit of which was the more or less clever manner in which borrowing, reminiscence, and tradition were interwoven and combined.
Lean, dark-featured, with keen-glancing eyes, and a body with a faculty for finding corners of ease; waving hair, streaked with grey, black moustache, and a hectic flush on the cheeks, lending to the world-wise face a wistful look-that, with near six feet of height, was the picture of his friend. "Who is it?" asked the miller, with bulging eyes. "An English nobleman," answered Baby.
And as if to testify that I was now a visible person a sharp-eyed newsboy discovered me the first human being in Kilburn who had actually seen me and came up with a paper in his hand. "Herald, boss?" I was interested in the shrewd, world-wise, humorous look in the urchin's eyes.
Young men paid court to the older ladies, to refine their manners and sharpen their intellects, but not for any immoral purpose. To a certain extent women were more world-wise when they reached the marriageable age, and inspired respect and admiration rather than passion and desire as in the next century.
Campion, after some hesitation, gratefully consented; and thus Cecilia, from the age of eight to her present age of nineteen, had the inestimable advantage of living in constant companionship with a woman of richly cultivated mind, accustomed to hear the best criticisms on the best books, and adding to no small accomplishment in literature the refinement of manners and that sort of prudent judgment which result from habitual intercourse with an intellectual and gracefully world-wise circle of society: so that Cecilia herself, without being at all blue or pedantic, became one of those rare young women with whom a well-educated man can converse on equal terms; from whom he gains as much as he can impart to her; while a man who, not caring much about books, is still gentleman enough to value good breeding, felt a relief in exchanging the forms of his native language without the shock of hearing that a bishop was "a swell" or a croquet-party "awfully jolly."
Folks must talk in this town, an' what they're sayin' 'bout you ought to make you feel proud that a young fellow like him, and worth money, wanted to come courtin', an' he certainly showed he did, or I'm no judge." It was homely advice, and from the standpoint of Aunt Susan, as well as most of the world-wise matrons of Sandgate, it was good advice.
He laughed. "So you feel isolated? I do, too. And I'm going to get out. I'm tired of decorating a set where the shuttle-cock of conversation is worn thin, frayed, ragged! Where the battledore is fashionable scandal and the players half dead with ennui and their neighbour's wives " "Duane!" "Oh, Lord, you're a world-wise graduate at twenty-two!
They have destroyed it! Oh, that I could be young once more!" "What!" said the world-wise man, astonished. "If thou hadst another youth, wouldst thou cherish the same delusion, and go again through a life of hardship, persecution, and wrong?"
Though Ann's hopeful mood distressed me, these same hopes in my world-wise Aunt Jacoba raised my spirit; but again, when I heard my grand-uncle speak of Herdegen as his duteous son, it fell as low as before.
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